The painting is named after the beautiful red salmon which gave impulse to the  complex associations in the imagination of the artist. The fiery red salmon with the green head and the hump floats in the clear waters of a pond near the feet of the beautiful young woman in the white wedding dress. The beauty is weaving a scarlet ribbon into her long blond hair, as a symbol of power and sacrifice, which every woman makes giving birth to a child like a red salmon which sacrifices everything for her brood.